Stories of Our Lives
by lalunaticscribe
Summary: A spin off of The Watson Chronicles. Stories of Our Lives: The Collective Exploits of Holmes and Watson in Mundane and Magic. Today, let their story be told. Warning: AU
1. Stories of Our Lives

_**Stories of Our Lives: The Collective Exploits of Holmes and Watson in Mundane and Magic**_

_**The Unknown Compendium of A Wizard's Adventures with His Partner**_

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_I am John Hamish Watson, titled Doctor, and I am a wizard. _

_As I write this, my intimate friend Sherlock Holmes is preparing to shoot more bullet holes into my waistcoat, which due to some... things worked into it have now managed to survive intact. So far, my waistcoat has lasted two months in Holmes's constant barrage and soon I might have to lay enchantments on it again before Holmes somehow damages the entire thing, coat and all, beyond repair. _

_Most of our adventures together during that time from 1898 to the end of the great war will never see the light of day, hopefully languishing in the darkness forever where they and their contents belong. Two decades of wizardry will be buried, before I and Holmes set out to the metaphorical lines of battle to wage our war for our home. There is a high chance that we would not survive our skirmishes with the mad necromancer Kemmler to tell our tale; the stories and anecdotes of the fast fading gaslight and horse-carriages era. Even if we do survive, already I see old age catch up with Holmes and I. I would probably live through the torture that age brings for centuries more; Holmes would not. If it must be that my friend must face the certainty of the dark shadow, then I may only pray that I may join him when he moves on. _

"_Do not grieve for me," my close friend says. "I love my work. There is no better way to die than in the pursuit of something one loves." Indeed, Holmes would probably die in the pursuit of that great game rather than peacefully in bed. _

_Once more, Duty calls upon the citizens of the British Empire to rally against those who threaten the freedom and independence of His Majesty's Dominions, and Sherlock Holmes is called into service to put his skills towards thwarting the enemies. Once more I stand by his side, hidden in shadow, waiting, watching, writing, and working the magic in the hope that one day, one day, war would be over, that the monsters would run back into the dark, the demons back below, the faery to the Nevernever, and the horrors of the night once again stay in the night rather than roam the battlefields of humans, revelling in the chaos, and us back to our rooms, be they Baker Street or Sussex. _

_This time, we are called to strike against the perverter of the Laws of Magic, Heinrich Kemmler, and we may not survive. Kemmler is a madman, he had started the war that now spans the six powers of Europe and threatens the safety of our Empire, all in the quest to master the forbidden magic; necromancy. He is evil and malignant, a perverter seeking to master even life's constant and ascend over mortal-kind. He is the very reason the White Council places harsh penalties on those who break its Laws, of which there is only one. _

_Already, I can feel our time drawing near, and that, soon, Holmes and I would be swept into the currents of change or dead. Should we survive Kemmler, what then? _

_Holmes will pass on, and I would be alone again, a dead man walking throughout the centuries. _

_I swear that if it should ever come to that, I will die by Holmes's side anyway. Life no longer has meaning for a Boswell without his subject. In sickness, in health, in life or death, for better or worse, I will follow. Death may triumph in the end, but we would be together, side by side, I think._

_I am John H. Watson, human and wizard, mortal and magical, and I write this, in the hope that the stories of our lives be read one day. _


	2. Event with the TestTubes & the Ceiling

I frowned as I surveyed the sitting room of 221B Baker Street again. I was sure that Holmes was in the room, seeing as the smell of his shag was a thick miasma in the air. So where had the Great Detective gone...?

"Watson, thank goodness." A voice exclaimed. I found my eyes being drawn to the ceiling and staying there.

"Watson, I appear to have become stuck to the ceiling," Holmes commented from his vantage point above, his back onto the ceiling, arms crossed. "due to some as yet unknown effect from your potion..."

Upon those words, my eyes flicked to my private corner and I saw a test tube with the remnants of a blue liquid dripping onto the carpet from it. "Holmes, I think you've drunk a potion of aeromancy," I pointed out. "And it's undiluted, so you'll be stuck on the ceiling until the potion wears off, which would be about seven hours from the point of drinking. When did you drink it?" I commented, all the while heaving his armchair to a position below him.

"...on hour ago," he admitted sheepishly. "Are you sure that..."

"Good luck for the next few hours," I cheerfully commented, grabbing my waistcoat from my armchair and my cane and turning to the door. "And you might want to consider labelling your test-tubes and then reading the labels before drinking it, Holmes."

"Watson...!"

Yes, it might have been a bit callous to have left him on the ceiling, I decided later as I left Baker Street to his wailing, but I was in a hurry.


	3. A Little Light in the Dark 1

_**A Little Light in the Dark I  
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_**June 1893**_

Under the cover of the London night, by little or no light, on that dark summer night in a doctor's practice in Kensington, John Watson made his first deliberate magic.

Muttering words under his breath, he held a silver cigarette-case close to his bosom as he contemplated the _Carmina Burana _in the darkness of his unlit sitting room. The fickleness of Fate which had stolen his friend in the falls of Switzerland, that a great man had lived only for so short a time in this world.

That had been only about two years ago now. Time had flowed on, waiting for none, and people had gone about their normal lives, except for him, emaciated and wasted fool he was, losing his family to the eternal foe of his profession. He was alone now, alone by fate, not by choice. John Watson, with not a kith or kin in England, alone on London, bereft of friend and family.

_If this be my life, _he focused upon the one constant; the cigarette-case which his dear friend had left by the falls of Reichenbach on their last great adventure together, _then... let there be light._

"_Fiat lux," _he quietly whispered, watching as he case came alight in his very hand.

He had done it.

The joy he felt then was tempered by the dreams of fools; _There is magic in my life. There is still hope. Hence, with every breath in my body, I will toil on...my friend. _

_Wait for me. _


	4. A Little Light in the Dark 2

_**Little Light in the Dark II **_

_**May 1899**_

Holmes was shivering, not with cold, but with a healthy tinge of fear, as he wandered amidst London's mustard fogs in the lower London, searching for a familiar way to recognisable roads rather than this dense yellow he saw everywhere. Fervently, he clutched his Christmas gift from Watson, a small silver ring carved with runes that the British Museum had identified as Elder Futhark. He had escaped before the docents had asked who had carved it. It was rather awkward to confess that his friend understood and could use an ancient language meant for casting magic to bind actual magic to the trinket.

He pressed the ring close to his clammy hands, slowly focusing on a happy memory... _barrelling down alleys after some rogue, Watson following at his heels, constant as the northern star itself as Watson kept up with his sprint. The joy of dashing after someone, on the scent, on the great adventure that came with mystery, and always with that constant presence_...

The ring glowed a bright white light within his palm, to his very astonishment, as the gloomy shadows gave way to weak white light that illuminated his path then.

He then understood why had Watson insisted that this, above all, was the best kind of magic. All that was needed...was a little light in the dark.

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End of _**A Little Light in the Dark**_


	5. The Faerie Problem

**_I know I'm a bit busy, and that it's been a long time since i updated any of my fics, but really, my fans, stay strong!_**

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_**The Faerie Problem**_

It was once said that Sherlock Holmes had a voice to match even the great sopranos in sheer volume, so masterful was it and the way he used it such that it was generally held that for such a spare man, he had an excellent pair of lungs, to be bellowing loud enough to be heard from both ends of the Strand. Therefore, it was to such a bellow that I was rudely awoken one fine morning.

"_WATSON! GET DOWN HERE, IF YOU PLEASE!_"

It was a testament to the many times our sitting rooms had seen violence such that I only slung on my shirt and trousers, not bothering with a toilet, before stumbling into our shared sitting room only to see Holmes lying back in his armchair with a man I had never seen before prior to now. He was an average-looking man, a tradesman if my guess were not wrong, and save for that his head was completely bald, the shiny scalp pink as a baby's cheeks, had absolutely no other truly noticeable features, save for the tufts of hair growing out of his ears.

I could not help myself. "Oh."

"Yes, it would seem that I am at a loss to explain exactly how Mr Turnstell's hair has spontaneously decided to grow _in_ instead of _out," _my insufferable friend commented. "Hence your rude awakening to examine his odd symptoms."

"Holmes," I started, "It has no doubt escaped your attention, but I will raise it anyway; my doctoring hours do not extend themselves to..."

"But your _sideline_ does," Holmes pointed out, the insufferable fellow. "However, in the interest of not scandalising our client, you should dress," he added as I beat a hasty retreat, as if it had only just occurred to him that perhaps yelling out loud was not the best way to summon a person just asleep.

"Forgive us, Mr Turnstell," Holmes started upon my return, this time clad in something more suited to polite company, "now we may get down to business. How, may I ask, have you managed such a...condition?"

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"Five records of spontaneous hair growth shift, two of ear-transfiguration, one ass-ification. Much as I enjoy seeing the Bard's work in person at that time, this is getting ridiculous."

"_Ass_-ification?"

"Midsummer Night's Dream, Watson. The _ass."_

"I see. May I ask how could anyone walk up to our sitting room with such an unusual appendage?"

"He wore a hat and scarf. No one noted him. Further proof, if needed, that most do not observe if the person walking down the street has truly noticed that the person next to them has a donkey's head upon their shoulders. I now know why the supernatural world has remained largely secret; hardly anyone notices it."

"And? What would you suppose me to do about it? If you notice, I do not keep an acquaintance with London's Fae."

"I need you to contact them and find out exactly what has happened. After all, I am paid to solve the problem. While you investigate the supernatural side, I will find out the missing link between all our victims."

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This was how I found myself tending to a troll hidden in the London sewers, performing an emergency operation to remove a shard of iron.

It turned out that all the cursed people in question had illegally dumped large quantities of iron-based trash into the Thames, thus affecting most of the water-based fae there and then as many fae were laid low by iron poisoning. In a stroke of genius, a medical treatment justifying the use of blood-sucking leeches was invented between me and Holmes: blood-letting. The ancient and previously barbaric medical practice has finally found its use in the saving of a kelpie and a siren from death's edge.

However, there were a few cases, such as the pregnant troll I was operating on, where the use of leeches was downright dangerous and now, I was performing a Caesarean operation, the first of its kind upon the world, using a bone knife the bull troll, by the name of Gristle, used for the cutting of meat. I declined to know what meat exactly.

For the record, a troll is almost anatomically similar to a large gorilla, which is distantly related to a human being. It was less an issue of medical ethics as one of feasibility, having no prior experience with such veterinary medicine. Panting and covered in greenish ichor, green being the colour of a river troll's blood (apparently mountain trolls have moss green blood and swamp trolls brownish blood, but let us not digress), I wrapped up the heavy infant by the side and set it by the mother troll while the father anxiously looked on. It was awkwardly similar to being surrounded by wild animals back in Kandahar, tending to injured soldiers upon the field, except that this time I did not fear deliberate attack from the giant seven-foot troll. Aside from the obvious fact that I held the lives his mate (trolls did not marry so much as mate, I learnt later) and child in my hands, Gristle was one of the more intelligent of his kind and as such would not attack someone who was obviously helping.

If the mother and child died, it was another matter to worry about.

I frowned as I tried to stem the blood-flow. "I need to stem the blood-flow by either burning it shut, or by sealing it either way, before I can scrub out the iron. Can you...?"

Gristle grimaced. "No. My control of Winter magic is not strong enough to freeze water on such short notice."

"Great. Erm...sorry for having to do this." I told the mother troll, who weakly nodded back, as I hefted a brass rod. It glowed in my hand, heated and ready to be implemented. "But I ran out of tranquillisers."

Despite the pain we went through, me from the mother troll digging sharp talons near my skin and attempting to restrain my hand long enough to break a few bones, she survived as I succeeded in burning the iron-caused wound shut. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I scrubbed out the last of the wound and applied disinfectant.

"Right. Any more?" I asked Gristle, standing up, valise in hand. "Now," I continued, handing the shocked troll a bottle. "Apply this cream to her wound three times a day, call me at Baker Street if anything happens, and luck be with you, Mr Gristle."

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"Why?" Gristle asked me later, when I had finished tending to the last fae patient, right out there on the steps of two twenty-one Baker Street. "Why would you help us when you would receive nothing in return? We owe you nothing for help willingly rendered."

I shrugged. "As far as I know, so long as no faerie attacks me, they are like the people of St. Giles and Whitechapel; in need of assistance. If you need medical treatment, turn up here. I'll see what I can do."

Later, I found out that I had endeared myself to London's fae who now called me 'wizard doctor'. But that is another story.

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_**Please read and review!**_


	6. The Devil Wears a Size Nine

_**The Devil Wears a Size Nine**_

"You know," I commented to my friend the Doctor one day in 1899, "I have always wondered about the message that the vicar of the small hamlet of Tredannick Wollas sent to me soon after the Cornish Horror."

"Really now?" Watson enquired, buried as he was in his book. "What did he enquire about?"

"Oh, nothing much," I languidly replied, fully aware that Watson had taken the bait. "Merely sending the bill for the reparation of the door of our former lodgings in Cornwall, which was mysteriously found lying in a smoking blaze in a field merely eighty feet away."

Watson suddenly seemed very interested in his book. I was on the right track.

"In fact," I continued, "due to the nature that a footprint had been burnt on to it, he naturally assumed unholy forces at work, and begged for my help. I, of course, not believing in the Adversary or his divine counterpart until last year, sent a request to have the footprint measured. I would judge the footprint to have come from a size nine shoe, which coincidentally is your shoe size, my dear fellow."

Clark Russell's stories must have been very distracting, for Watson to be so engrossed in it.

"Now, with all the facts in hand, I would have naturally come to the conclusion that you have done something under the influence of _radix pedis diaboli_ to the door in the bid to free us from an ill-advised experiment. Considering the nature of the burn, you presumably kicked it, and of course, the influence of devil's foot root forces the receiver to panic, and panic is a strong emotion capable of fuelling the most dangerous things...even magic, Watson."

"It worked, didn't it?" Watson mumbled back at me sheepishly.

"Yes, my dear fellow, but I would like to know...would I be receiving more bills for property damage any time soon? Even my funds have a limit to them, you know."

"Well..."

"Of course, you could pay with those obscene royalty cheques that your publisher sends to you...but really..."

"Yes, Holmes?"

"How much property damage have you wrecked during my absence, old boy?"


	7. The Will of the British Empire

_**The Will of the Empire Personified**_

_**This is actually a scene from 'A Midwinter's Nightmare', which is still undergoing construction, but it was so funny I just had to put it up. I based it off a scene from 'The Extraordinary Adventures of Horatio Lyle' by Catherine Webb. That was a highly recommended read, I tell you. **_

_**Story segment is from Holmes's point of view, around a scene where they enter a faerie battle to stop a mad elf from her attempt to take over the Faerie Courts. Yes, I am being perfectly honest. However, the focus of this is Watson, not the story at hand. Pure, unadulterated crack. Beware.  
**_

_**Enjoy**_

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I waved to a Sidhe knight dressed in whites and blues, who cantered over upon his horse. Lifting the visor of the truly medieval helmet, the Sidhe knight waved a hand, at which the sounds of the faerie battle dimmed.

"Emissaries of the Queens, I greet thee," he began.

"Good evening, sir knight," I hurriedly started. "We need to speak with Queen Mab post-haste."

He frowned. "The Winter Emissary may, but the Summer Emissary..."

"The Queen of Elphame has rebelled and is currently preparing a ritual fuelled by the blood of changelings to gain the power to ascend the Ivory Throne," I began hurriedly. The Sidhe knight's eyes widened as he looked at Watson.

"Nevertheless, I..."

Watson eyes began to narrow. "_What?_" he asked, deceptively calm.

It would be extraneous to add that this tone had been the precursor for bad things to come, things so horrible that even one such as I cringe to hear it.

"There is a protocol that states that no Emissary of Summer may speak directly to the Queen..." the oblivious Sidhe knight started.

Watson then lost all sense of patience. "_Have you no sense of who I am?_" he bellowed. "_Dash all this Summer-Winter antagonism! I am John Watson, certified Medical Doctor, formerly Surgeon-Colonel of the Sixty-Sixth Berkshire Regiment of Her Majesty's Army, and I am here on the business of Her Most Royal Majesty Queen Victoria, by the grace of God Reginae Britannica and Defender of the Faith, Empress of the Seven Seas, Lady of the Red Rose of a Thousand Years, Dame of the Yellow Garter. I have come bearing grave news from the realm of Queen Victoria to the __Queens of Faerie, and I demand by the terms of my service to be brought before the presence of Her Majesty Queen Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, Monarch of the Unseelie Court and of the Winter Fae this instant! Get to it!"_

The famed Watson bull pup roused was indeed a sight to behold. In Watson then, I saw the willpower of the British empire packed into his broad, stocky frame like the Scottish kings of old waiting to charge into battle. As sure as there was art in my blood, somewhere in Watson's ancestry was the blood of kings, so fierce and implacable and imperious he was then that I instinctively cowered from his outburst.

The will of the strongest empire the world have seen, personified. That was Doctor Watson, the soldier.

The now thoroughly cowed knight on a horse that could rival a Clydesdale saluted instantly. "Right this way, sir."

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_**Please read and review!**_


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